Thanks for your letter of February 27th, regarding viral vectored contraceptives. Sorry for the delay in answering, but I have been on Assateague Island treating wild horses with our contraceptive vaccine. The issue of how American scientists view this sort of research is really irrelevant, largely because of our federal regulatory agencies. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are but a few of the federal regulatory agencies that oversee this sort of research, and beyond that, we have state agencies that also must review and approve wildlife contraceptive research. Thus, the bigger question is what the agencies think of this sort of research. The thoughts of the scientists themselves are almost irrelevant.

In our own case for example, where we deliver a non-specific contraceptive vaccine by means of a very specific delivery system - darts - every project we carry out must be reviewed and approved by the FDA and the appropriate state agencies before we can start work. We have been told that any oral contraceptives - which we don’t use - must be species-specific.